Interesting article by Fred Dutton, speaking to former World of Warcraft lead Mark Kern:

Quote

[…] the Red 5 Studios CEO argued that the free-to-play model offers developers much more room to flex their creative muscles, rewarding gamers with more innovative gameplay experiences than risk-averse AAA console publishers can hope to offer.

“The failure is that there’s no middle ground. All the games in the middle that could have been made but have been squeezed out and we’ve seen all these independent studios get closed down over the last few years.

Back on Topic, in a way the act of deciding not to play a AAA game for "something smaller" is almost a type of consumer revolt. Overall cultural companies are trying to push us to "Moar Moar Moar" and to disdain last year's game so that they can increase sales. But it's just getting exhausting. "Pff - you mean this isn't in holographic 3d? who needs that?"

So Angry Birds and Farmville are my first examples of that revolt back to "flash in the pan" gaming. So is things like Ludum Dare.

If anyone has ever looked at what it takes to get a game on a console... it's a massive amount of effort.

The last console I had was an Atari 2600. It's been a while.

Back then, the word for "console" was "Atari".

I won't cry if consoles die though. They're a choke point, and we're better off with free distribution on the Internet instead of controlled, walled-gardens.

Incidentally, the "Android Marketplace" app on 1 of my Android devices got automatically removed and "upgraded" to "Google Play". Ahem... You mean you f**ked with MY device? You deleted s**t without asking me? Yeah... F*** you too. Not happy about that. It's not that the marketplace got replaced - it's that I don't walk into your house and s**t on the floor, and I don't expect others to do the same to me. Malware deletes stuff without asking you. Breaking into a computer that belongs to someone else and deleting stuff while installing other stuff is what we call "a criminal offense" in most places - you go to jail for it. But somehow it's ok if Google does it?

Nah... This entire control-freak stuff like consoles has to go.

What I would like to see is a version of Android that isn't malware. iOS will always be malware, so there's no hope there, but Android has a faint glimmer of hope...

It would be nice to see consoles more open as well. I'd be more inclined to get one if they were...

I'd like to separate the "console" from the "content". I get grumpy lately when news articles mash up two variables (or more!) to come to a conclusion. It's like saying that 6'1 out of shape Chicago Vegans can beat 4'11 Eskimos with perfect blood cholesterol in a foot race, based on a sample size of 6 each. (And they call this stuff "Science" now! What kind of science is that??!)

Incidentally, the "Android Marketplace" app on 1 of my Android devices got automatically removed and "upgraded" to "Google Play". Ahem... You mean you f**ked with MY device? You deleted s**t without asking me? Yeah... F*** you too. Not happy about that.

Huh?

How do you expect to keep using the Android Market if it doesn't take you to Google Play? It's the same thing. It's just been renamed and got a new icon. You don't complain when the DNS entry for "donationcoder.com" updates to a new IP address, do you?

Incidentally, the "Android Marketplace" app on 1 of my Android devices got automatically removed and "upgraded" to "Google Play". Ahem... You mean you f**ked with MY device? You deleted s**t without asking me? Yeah... F*** you too. Not happy about that.

Huh?

How do you expect to keep using the Android Market if it doesn't take you to Google Play? It's the same thing. It's just been renamed and got a new icon. You don't complain when the DNS entry for "donationcoder.com" updates to a new IP address, do you?

If I owned "donationcoder.com", you're damn straight I'd be pissed! But I don't.

I own my tablet. It's mine. Not someone else's. Mine. Deleting anything on it WITHOUT asking me isn't acceptable. It doesn't matter if the old marketplace is dead or not. The point is that something was deleted on MY property without asking me.

If someone comes into your house and takes your couch because you happened to be late on a payment, that's still theft. You owe those people money - not a couch. Breaking and entering is breaking and entering. Theft is theft. Hacking is hacking.

They could have avoided pissing me off by simply displaying a notice. That's all it would have taken. But they didn't. They just went ahead and deleted it. THAT's what ticks me off. Because if they'll do it for one thing, they'll do it for another.

As for being renamed and given a new icon -- that's not what happened. That would have been just that, and while somewhat odd, still acceptable. There was a very clear market icon, and it's now gone. Completely. Not replaced. Instead, a different piece of software was installed and it is located in a different location.

Anyways, I'm over it. I don't like people breaking into my computers, but that's life. If you are a government or big corporation, you get to do whatever you want. Might makes right.

Surely you all heard the meme from the current generation console release:

The PS3 has no games!

And rightly so. Consoles really are only useful for big title releases of games that are intended for mainstream audiences, and are built from the ground up by corporate for corporate as platforms to corner the market in a way that nobody else can possibly break into.

Also a quick note on most mobile devices:Most cellphones or tablets that you got from your wireless company are in fact not yours. Clearly written in the contract you signed when you signed up for their services it states that at all times the device and all of it's contents are the property of the company that you get service from, and as such they are free to do whatever they please with them regardless of if you like that or not.

Your only recourse if you object to this is to get service somewhere else.

Now there are ways around this of course, since some carriers do let you provide your own device and I believe under those circumstances they would not gain ownership of it, but most of the time people buy the device with the service contract.

Surely you all heard the meme from the current generation console release:

The PS3 has no games!

And rightly so. Consoles really are only useful for big title releases of games that are intended for mainstream audiences, and are built from the ground up by corporate for corporate as platforms to corner the market in a way that nobody else can possibly break into.

Also a quick note on most mobile devices:Most cellphones or tablets that you got from your wireless company are in fact not yours. Clearly written in the contract you signed when you signed up for their services it states that at all times the device and all of it's contents are the property of the company that you get service from, and as such they are free to do whatever they please with them regardless of if you like that or not.

Your only recourse if you object to this is to get service somewhere else.

Now there are ways around this of course, since some carriers do let you provide your own device and I believe under those circumstances they would not gain ownership of it, but most of the time people buy the device with the service contract.

Interesting...

Regarding tablets not being "my" property, I didn't sign anything. I know some do. For my tablet, I didn't. It's mine flat out. If I want to lie to MY property, that's my perogative. If I want to destroy it? Same. There are NO rights beyond MINE on MY tablet.

Which is why I'm so f**king pissed that those c**ts at Google deleted software on MY tablet. Very, very, very NOT happy here.

I pretty much need to shut up at this point, because anything further I have to say on it goes in Soap Box. (Already ranted on this before -- still ticked when it comes up though.)

Surely you all heard the meme from the current generation console release:

The PS3 has no games!

Sorry, I missed the Meme-o. What is this about the PS3 having no games?

For a very short period (I think it was a few days) after the PS3 was released, it literally had no games released at the time that could be used with it. Of course Sony very quickly corrected this situation by shuffling release dates, but it still created an interesting situation where what could have been the best selling console of the season had a severely crippled market because there were no PS3 games- only PS2 games were available.

The result is a somewhat obscure internet joke where when someone is talking about PS3 stuff somebody else will point out that the PS3 is a waste of money because it has no games. Usually it is attached to some type of reaction image.

The result is a somewhat obscure internet joke where when someone is talking about PS3 stuff somebody else will point out that the PS3 is a waste of money because it has no games. Usually it is attached to some type of reaction image.